Can I tell you a secret?

Can I tell you a secret? One of my dearest dreams is that when my husband and I retire, we will live in an Old Vicarage.

This is largely for comedic purposes. We are currently middle-aged vicars, but when the time comes, I would greatly enjoy being old vicars in an old vicar-age. At present, we live in a Rectory – my husband’s job title here is Rector, which, for those outside Anglican life, differs from a Vicar mostly in the charming twists of church history rather than anything else. And we live not in an Old Rectory, but in a New Rectory.

The Old Rectory in the village is beautiful. It is big and rambling and characterful and full of architectural quirks. Our house, by contrast, is a box. A very big and extremely comfortable box — but a box nonetheless. Whenever I find myself sighing over mullioned windows and winding staircases, I try to console myself with thoughts of heating bills and the endless cleaning such character would require. Romance surely fades quickly when caught in a freezing draught.

Between our house and the church lies the churchyard. And because we have a dog, I walk around or through said churchyard several times a day. It has become a great place of contemplation for me and one of the most perspective-giving places in my life.

The older gravestones are worn soft by centuries of weather, but I try to work out their inscriptions. I discover the names of men and women – and heartbreakingly, some children – who lived their entire lives here. ‘Beloved husband.’ ‘Devoted mother.’ Lives compressed into a few careful lines, carved in stone.

I try to imagine their stories. Their joys. Their disappointments. The quiet struggles never recorded. Their own secret dreams – perhaps realised, perhaps not. And all the while, though even their names are blurring now, they were known. Known fully by God.

Then I lift my eyes and see our church. Between AD 768 and 779, King Offa (I don’t know who he is either) granted the land here to some monks, so they probably had a modest building of some sort. A later building made probably from wattle and daub is on record but there is no trace of that now. St Michael’s stone church that is standing today was built around 1170, so that’s still an impressive 856 years old.

While kingdoms shifted and crowns were claimed, as Richard the Lionheart went off on some rather dubious crusades, stones were being laid here for the worship of God. For around a millennium, Christians have gathered in this place to pray, to weep, to celebrate, to confess, to give thanks and praise to God. Generations have passed through plagues, wars, reformations, civil unrest, theological disputes, and cultural upheaval – and still the prayers and worship have continued.

In the complex times through which we find ourselves living, that long view matters. It is steadying to sit in a building that has witnessed so much change and yet still stands as a place where God is worshipped. And where we remember the God who is faithful, even in the midst of humanity’s increasingly frightening frailty.

As I walk the journey of Lent and travel with Jesus Christ towards the cross, this perspective deepens. The cross is not God recoiling from the worst humanity can throw at Him; it is God walking straight into it. And it is on that same God that we can depend now.

Christians have observed Lent in this place for nearly 1,000 years – nearly half the time since the crucifixion. They have stood at the foot of the cross in times far darker and more uncertain than ours and trusted that the resurrection of Easter would come. The churchyard whispers that every life is real, and every life ends. The church tower – visible from miles around – guides us towards the God who welcomes us, with open arms, into eternal life with Him.

Perhaps that’s why I dream of an Old Vicarage. Old buildings carry stories in their beams and bricks. They remind us that we are part of something larger than ourselves — something that began long before we arrived and will, by God’s grace, continue long after we’re gone.

For now, I will be grateful for our comfortable box and its manageable heating bill. But one day, perhaps, we will be really quite old Vicars in a very draughty Old Vicarage, smiling at our ironic address. And trusting in the same faithful God who has never once been afraid of our struggles – and whose love, in the end, conquers them all.